American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders

Ignore the suspicously odd number of super low reviews. This documentary is flawed, but well worth a watch. Addressing the flaws first: it's a bit plodding at times and there are parts that could have been clearer. It also seems to throw the main information under the bus to some degree (perhaps pulling back to lessen the possiblity of blowback for making it). Is it biased? Probably (it's on Netflix, after all). Does it tell the whole story? Nope.

It is, however, very much still worth a watch. It offers some fresh examples of how the world actually works: evidence that's buried by the police, murderous criminals who do little/no time (because they also work for powerful people), intelligence operatives posing as humanitarians, "whistleblowers" who dole out disinformation and try to determine what you actually know, intersection of intelligence organizations and organized crime, etc.

If you aren't already somewhat familiar with the world of covert operations like the CIA's role in the crack cocaine epidemic you might assume all of what's in the documentary is made up, but the world is a strange place.

The documentary series is watchable and interesting on multiple levels. On the surface, the mystery behind the death of Casolaro, an investigative journalist who dies while in pursuit of his journalistic White Whale. Did he take his own life? Or was he murdered?

The second layer, not obvious at first, is the perilous prospect of diving head first into a rabbit hole, and the affect on a person's sanity and grip on reality, when one rabbit hole inevitably leads to more.

The third tragic layer is the damage you can feel from all the peripheral players. Family and friends of Casolaro's as well as the investigators involved (including the documentarians) are haunted by his death, and the labyrinthian tentacles of a corrupt network too big to solve.

The unreliable narratives, shady interviewees and second hand (sometimes third or fourth) information spin wheels that often go nowhere. We even get a bizarre claim about the veracity of the Zapruder film that will cause thousands of internet searches.

What can't be argued are the disturbing patterns of convenient missing data, witnesses and disinterested authorities. In the last episode, the file on Casolaro's death is opened, revealing a key piece of information that was hidden/ignored/forgotten that would have changed the entire course of his murder investigation.

The internecine threads of government corruption, illegal and immoral surveillance are, by turns, shocking but unsurprising.

Ultimately, as a documentary there are quality issues that can't be ignored, and more than a few confusing photo montages that don't shed any light...on anything.

But, in the end, tantalized by another random phone call, our investigator, who has seemed to break away from the demented allure of mass conspiracy, allows himself to be drawn in once again.

A cautionary tale to be sure.

This is the kind of documentaries that stand out from the Netflix average trendy true crime docuseries and makes our subscription worthwhile. It's full of historical informations, not over dramatized and well narrated. This is a great tribute to Danny Caselaro's work. So to the main investigator of this doc Christian Hansen : Bravo ! It seems that this investigation took years of your life but it was worth it (+ you're still alive). Your doc helps clear some of the fog of history around the shitshow that was the 70's and 80's, it's so refreshing and entertaining !

Kudos to the Netflix producers that trusted you and financed this doc, we want more docs like this ! You tapped into a vein of gold right there, keep going !

Overall it's very interesting content. The intelligence community seems as dark and shady as we all imagined. Honestly, it's probably far worse than we could ever imagine and any documentary could ever portray. This documentary moves at a snails pace. At times it feels scattered and likely missing parts. I understand that's part of a conspiracy theory but by the end it's difficult to keep the timeline straight enough to make a proper conclusion for yourself. Aggravating ending. Kudos to the film makers for digging up the research and interviews though. You can see the time they put into it. Unfortunately it just misses the mark overall in the end.

Committed by the second episode, was slightly irked it never really concluded after 4 hours investment.

That's all I have to say really, now filling up characters to suit IMDB. Lead along on the premise that something exciting would happen; it never did. Totally appreciate that's perhaps part of the appeal for some people - for me it was just quite frustrating after investing so much time.

Quite hard to follow at times with lots of names etc. Sounds like in the end all the characters were insane, almost rendering the whole exercise useless. I just felt disappointed at the end after investing so much time.